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Calibration of Radiocarbon Dates for the Late Pleistocene Using U/Th Dates on Stalagmites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

John C. Vogel  and
Joel Kronfeld
John C. Vogel
Affiliation:
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Box 395, Pretoria, South Africa 0001
Joel Kronfeld
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysics, University of Tel Aviv, Ramat Aviv, Israel
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Abstract

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Twenty paired 14C and U/Th dates covering most of the past 50,000 yr have been obtained on a stalagmite from the Cango Caves in South Africa as well as some additional age-pairs on two stalagmites from Tasmania that partially fill a gap between 7 ka and 17 ka ago. After allowance is made for the initial apparent 14C ages, the age-pairs between 7 ka and 20 ka show satisfactory agreement with the coral data of Bard et al. (1990, 1993). The results for the Cango stalagmite between 25 ka and 50 ka show the 14C dates to be substantially younger than the U/Th dates except at 49 ka and 29 ka, where near correspondence occurs. The discrepancies may be explained by variations in 14C production caused by changes in the magnetic dipole field of the Earth. A tentative calibration curve for this period is offered.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , 1997 , pp. 27 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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